More Than Just a School - PHENND's Community Partnerships

More Than But A Schoolhouse

An AmeriCorps program helps select Commune schools plow from academic centers into providers of social services. Is this a model for the time to come?

Sep. 14, 2015

The "doomsday" budget cuts of 2022 had a peculiarly dramatic issue on Penn Treaty School in Fishtown. What had been a relatively pocket-sized schoolhouse for sixth to 8th graders became—thanks to schoolhouse closures—a humming  6 to 12 school serving 700 students from several dissimilar neighborhoods. All of a sudden, Penn Treaty administrators had students taking the SATs and applying to higher; they had meaning students in need of healthcare and babysitting; they had students using inappropriate sexual language, and couples fighting in the halls—none of which the middle schoolhouse staff had handled earlier.

Complicating matters was a staff that was smaller than ever before—thanks to district layoffs. Besides teachers, the only adults in the building were a main; 2 school counselors; a office-time nurse; and a few assistants. This small grouping would already take been bare-bones; now, the staff was stretched to a breaking point. "It was a massive transition," says Penn Treaty counselor Sarah Touma. "You can't imagine how difficult information technology was."

What Penn Treaty did accept that twelvemonth was a lot of customs support—thank you to an AmeriCorps program which provided the school with a total-time "community partnership coordinator" to harness the efforts of organizations, volunteers and service providers in the surrounding neighborhood. The coordinator was just 1 more than adult in the building; simply her efforts ensured the schoolhouse had a stable supply of social service organizations, out of class programs and volunteers to come across student needs—health, social, family, college readiness—that went across the classroom.

"At that place are so many programs looking to connect with district students," says Liz Shriver, from  the Philadelphia Higher Educational activity Network for Neighborhood Development (PHENND), which runs the Community Partnerships VISTA Project. "They say 'We want to partner with more schools merely no one answers our calls,' or 'There's no one to brand sure the space is prepare.' The principals say, 'We just don't have the capacity to respond to all their inquiries and do our jobs,' or 'How practise we even know this program is loftier quality?' The customs partnership coordinators make all of those connections happen."

This acknowledges the reality that schools today are more than just places to larn reading and math; often, they are also necessary safe nets for children and their families.

PHENND's community partnership projection uses strategies pulled from a national movement that is offering a different kind of solution to school funding problems here and in other cities: Create "schoolhouse-based family service centers," more ordinarily known every bit "community schools" that serve not only as academic centers, but hubs for social service providers in the community. This acknowledges the reality that schools today are more than than just places to learn reading and math; often, they are as well necessary safety nets for children and their families. "Most people think of schools today as serving a single purpose: a binary, analog-system of delivery—teachers teach and students learn. Community schools are more akin to smart phones. Schools and communities connect, collaborate, and create," notes the Coalition for Customs Schools . This model has already been implemented in several cities with varying success, including Oakland, Hartford, New York Metropolis and the Schoolhouse District of Cincinnati .

In Philadelphia, everyone from Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools to City Council to Superintendent Bill Hite have touted the value of bringing community-based services into schools—though no one has withal figured out how to fund widespread change across an already strapped commune. PHEEND's program is not creating customs schools exactly; the services in the building are nevertheless primarily geared towards students, non the larger neighborhood. But the program might offer a blueprint for how the spirit of community schools tin exist implemented in Philadelphia inside traditional commune schools.

At Penn Treaty—among the first schools to participate in the program— community partnership coordinator Caitlin Roman became the finish-gap for whatever type of issue that school officials couldn't take on themselves. Students needed eye exams? She brought in Hawkeye Centre Mobile Health. College prep? Roman coordinated with Gorging college readiness plan. Wellness lessons? Eat.Correct.At present. came in to practise programming. Roman also became the schoolhouse's advocate with politicians, local businesses, grantmakers and the schoolhouse customs itself, running its Twitter feed and newsletter to spread the word near what was happening.

At the offset of the school year, Penn Treaty's nurse realized the school was unprepared to help pregnant students. And then Roman establish and brought in a programme that offers complimentary childcare and incentivizes school omnipresence, as well every bit runs comprehensive sex education for all ninth graders—two days a week for viii weeks, a pace upwardly from the previous system in which these topics were simply discussed in health class. In the winter of 2014, vi Penn Treaty students in two months were rushed to the hospital after taking the drug K2 (laced marijuana). The school's overburdened counselors asked Roman to assist. "I mobilized our customs partnership network, and nosotros came and spoke at a customs meeting," Roman says. "From there, things really took off. We met with the local police precinct, with a Councilwoman's chief of staff. The police started treating these cases differently. After that we saw a serious decrease in the utilize of that drug and were able to get the student we identified every bit distributing it removed."

PHENND launched the community partnership coordinator plan in 2022 with five schools; this yr, 16 Philly Commune schools have VISTAs, who volition serve for iii years. (PHENND also has three VISTAs who work at the District, helping to coordinate their resources and services, and serving as liaisons betwixt PHENND initiative and district.) Shriver says the goal is not to supervene upon the resources that should be in all schools—trained teachers, full-fourth dimension nurses, counselors, and other support staff—simply to supplement and support them for the long haul.

"Total time school nurses and counselors are the natural partnership coordinators," says Shriver. "They already naturally do that. That'due south why nosotros need them so badly, because they know the schools and the communities inside and out. Our program would piece of work better with a fully-funded district and a team of counselors and nurses  that the VISTA could work alongside."

The PHENND plan  costs approximately $400,000 a year to operate, including $13,000 for each VISTA per year, preparation, professional development and other expenses. Currently, the program is funded through AmeriCorps and grants from The William Penn Foundation, Samuel Southward. Fels Fund and The United Way. In other cities, like Cincinnati, school resource officers are funded through Championship I grants (for which Philly would as well authorize) and from big local corporations similar Proctor & Risk. Rolling it out District-broad would require a delivery no ane has still agreed to make. Meanwhile, the list of schools set to harness community resources continues to grow.

"We've always had more schools than positions we are able to provide," says Shriver, of PHENND's VISTA program. "The schools are ready. The schools recognize that they need help and are ready to beginning buckling down and figure this stuff out."

Header photograph: Penn Treaty Schoolhouse by Eli Pousson

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/more-than-just-a-school/

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